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Speeding nightmare on street

Up in arms: Residents are calling for speed humps or signs along Tapping and Gumblossom Way after suffering all sorts of damage from speeding hoons.

Quinns Rocks resident Decima Harrison said they submitted a 13-signature petition to Wanneroo City Council earlier this year, asking for speed humps on Tapping Way and stop signs at the Gumblossom Way junction.

However in June, the council decided to refuse the request based on a staff report that said speeding and hooning were best controlled by police.

‘It’s a thoroughfare for hoons,’ Ms Harrison said.

‘It’s a nightmare getting out on the street; vehicles have been hit reversing out of their driveways.

‘Vehicles have landed in what used to be a hedge here.

‘They come along and run over the animals; we’ve even had a dog have its tail severed.’

Vivian and Martin Ricetti said cars had knocked over their rubbish bins several times and their letterbox twice, and they had trouble getting out of their driveway.

‘The main problem is the speed; they just don’t care, they don’t worry about people coming out of their driveways,’ Mrs Ricetti said.

‘Even a ‘slow down’ sign at the top of that hill would be great. This motorbike came screaming over the top and took off our front bumper; it came past on the footpath.’

A resident recently put homemade signs out asking drivers to slow down, and Ms Harrison said there had been a positive reaction to them before the City removed them. ‘People have had enough,’ she said. ‘It’s getting out of control.’

Walking her children along Tapping Way, resident Chris Hill said drivers ought to use the road safely.

‘It’s just about road safety and being watchful of little kids around; they make erratic decisions, so we need to be driving proactively to know that kids could come out at any time,’ she said.

‘If you are speeding, you are not going to have that same control. It’s a matter of not driving foolishly down the street.’

Wanneroo councillor Bob Smithson said the problem was multi-faceted but it came down to the behaviour of road users.

‘We have put speed humps in some streets only to have residents in that street ask us to take them out; hoons use it as an obstacle course,’ he said. ‘It’s not a simple solution (but) I will go back to Council, find out if there’s an additional way that we can explore a potential solution.’